Pentagon Commitment Helps Advance E-Learning
Standard Garden variety survey article on the
Pentagon's committment to online learning. The last
paragraph contains a nugget, something I've been touting
for many years: "The eventual advantage is that we're going
to provide a digital knowledge environment where chunks of
knowledge are going to be shareable and reusable. If they
exist somewhere, you will be able to find them," said the
Pentagon's Parmentier. "Eventually we'll have a world where
knowledge flows like water or electricity." Yes. But is
anyone really thinking about the implications of this?
Think: you don't have to go to the town square for water
any more. What does that mean? By Ellen McCarthy,
Washington Post, May 14, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Training Becomes More Animated Maybe the
empirical results will prove me wrong, but I doubt it. I
just don't think that Peedy the Parrot, a 3-D talking
animated character, sets the right tone for a government
department training program. Leaving aside the fact that it
treats viewers like Grade 2 students, let me ask this: how
is it that you get a student to focus on the material by
adding aminations that distract them from it? By Dibya
Sarkar , FCW.Com, May 17, 2002
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Philadelphians Jittery Over Plan to Privatize
20 Schools Much was made over Philadelphia's recent
decision to assign management of dozens of schols to
private contractors. What the administrators didn't count
on, however, is that one of its major contractors - Edison
Schools Inc. - might become suddenly and dramatically
financially unstable. Now they are having second thoughts
in Philadelphia as they learn, some for the first time, one
of the stark realities of running public services through
private contractors: public services, unlike businesses,
cannot be allowed to fail. By Jacques Steinberg, New York
Times, May 17, 2002
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Web Line Art Line art is an image
intended to be embedded in (and read as) text. A
mathematical formula or a graph, for example, may qualify
as line art. This useful article provides some basic tips
on how to create compact and readable line art. By John
Winn, Dartmouth College, May 20, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Constellations for Learning One of four
articles in the current EDUCAUSE Review that loks at the
impact of More's Law on the future of education (See
http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm02/erm023w.asp for the
others). Distributed as a monster PDF file (1.1 megabytes)
this article (wisely) skips over most of the issues raised
by the EDUCAUSE theme with some platitudes and gets to the
heart of the matter while discussing wireless access while
learning. "When is it OK to use the
devices? All of the time? Facilities designers and planners
need to be aware of changes in common courtesies and
practices and need to provide for them." That said, there
is a certain sense in which the author is out of touch with
the new reality. He writes, "Facilities must allow
students,
especially those working in groups, to interact with each
other and with their computing devices." Well sure. Of
course. But it's not a question of "allowing" students,
something that becomes clear when you ask the converse
question: how would you stop them? By Charles Kerns,
EDUCAUSE Review, May, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Mobile Computing for Teaching and Learning at
Wake Forest - What Are the Critical Infrastructure
Services? Forget the audio chat that headlines this
resource. Or perhaps play it in the background while you
look at the wealth of materials assembled to support this
discussion. Most of the discussion centered around mobile
or wireless learning. In particular, the discussion
introduced PocketClassroom, software developed at Wake
Forest University that turns a PocketPC equipped with a
wireless card into a web server, a presentation controller,
and a feedback device for a classroom instructor or for any
speaker making a presentation to an audience. By David G.
Brown and Jay Dominick, CREN, May 16, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Technological and Pedagogical Convergence
between Work-based and Campus-based Learning I have
slected three articles from the current issue of
Educational Technology & Society, the IEEE Learning
Technology Task Force journal (see
http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/vol_2_2002/v_2_2002.html).
The IEEE format does not lend itself to essays of this
nature. Though many of them would have had something useful
to say, the usefulness has been squeezed out by the format.
About half of each essay is devoted to summarizing previous
work. Most of the rest of each essay summarizes a specific
project. Useful discussion is limited to one or two
paragraphs.

The current article is a case in point. It describes a
project where a work-based cohort was merged with a
university-based cohort for the final four weeks of a
university course. The author concludes that "The different
understandings (often tacit) of learning, training,
competency and capability held by university and industry
staff need to be made explicit." Yes, and an academic
article, such as this, would be a great place to do that!
Sadly, it turns out that this is no such forum and our
curiosity remains unsated.

I do not blame the author for this. The same pattern is
repeated in paper after paper. The guardians of Educational
Technology & Society ought to consider again whether their
format is furthering scholarship or hindering it. By David
F. Radcliff, Educational Technology & Society, May, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Web-based Corporate Learning in Siberia:
Reflections on an American Model The point of this
paper is to look for differences in web based learning in
Russia as compared to similar experiences in the United
States. So far as I can judge, the author found no
significant differences and indeed comments that "many
similarities with US experience were apparent." This should
be less surprising than it seems as the present state of
the web and web based learning are the product of an
international, and not uniquely American, process of
development. Similarly, "usefulness, timeliness, and
instructional quality" are values shared around the world.
By Richard Schreck, Educational Technology & Society, May,
2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Academics in Academia: the Forgotten Resource
in the Rush to New Technologies There is a promise of
something more in this paper but unfortunately the life has
been squeezed out of it. What remains is a discussion of
how adopting new methods of teaching and research can
actually improve, not diminish, an academic's job prospects
and job satisfaction. The new method include online
teaching and learning as well as the use of adjuncts
(usually students) to perform lower level academic tasks.
By Tim S Roberts, Educational Technology & Society, May,
2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

A Policy for Continuous Learning in the
Public Service of Canada Researchers frequently comment
that the most difficult barriers to the deployment of
online learning are often policy barriers. This policy is a
model of procedures that can be put into place in an
organization - in this case the Public Service of Canada -
that begin to overcome those barriers. By creating an
expectation that staff will learn continuously, and by
putting the resources in place to ensure that such learning
is possible, a policy framework such as this can go a long
way. Note that the policy is technologically neutral. That,
also, is as it should be. By Secretariat, Treasury Board
of Canada, May 15, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

How Dangerous is Online Chat for Kids?
Summary of a House Subcommittee hearing called "Chatting
On-Line: A Dangerous Proposition for Children" held in
Kalamazoo, Michigan. Interesting contrast between what the
legislators apparently wanted to hear - that there is a
need for new legislation - and what presenters felt was the
best approach - increased education for children along with
the enforecement of current legislation. I am with the
latter camp: "The value of empowering our children, through
education with the knowledge and critical-thinking skills
that they need to be able to independently assess the
every-day situations they will encounter while online
cannot be overstressed... Education and empowerment are
key." By Jamie McCarthy, Slashdot, May 14, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]